


Stoke

by Irelando



Series: the light [6]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Baze POV, Bodhi POV, Canon-Typical Violence, Cassian POV, F/M, Gen, Jyn POV, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-21 05:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9534137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irelando/pseuds/Irelando
Summary: Stoke (v.)to poke, stir up, and feed (a fire).(aka: Rogue One's first official assignment: a recruitment mission on Coruscant)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so that break was longer than I meant it to be. I apologize for that! Hopefully I can kick it back into gear - I'm aiming to have a chapter of this up every two days, every day if I can swing it. I estimate this'll be about 6 chapters total.

“Explain to me one more time how this isn’t a terrible idea?” Bodhi says, glancing over his shoulder at Cassian. Behind him, in the viewport, Jyn can see the blue-streaked glow of hyperspace abruptly cut out. The ship shudders around them as they drop back into realspace.

“The Empire is reeling,” Cassian says patiently. “We dealt them a huge blow. People are realizing that they aren’t unbeatable. There’s no better time to recruit.”

Bodhi bobs his head. “Right, okay. I get that.” He pauses. “But _Coruscant_?”

“Most densely populated planet in the galaxy,” Jyn says brightly.

“Also the most populated with _Stormtroopers_ ,” Bodhi hisses. 

Kaytoo swivels his head from his seat in the copilot’s chair. “I have been running calculations—“

“No, thank you,” all three of them chorus. 

K-2 lets out a tinny huff and turns forward. 

Chirrut, seated on the bench in the middle of the cargo bay, taps his staff on the ground thoughtfully. “The Force is strong here,” he says. “Dark. But strong.”

“Dark doesn’t sound good,” Bodhi says. 

“Relax, little brother,” Baze says from where he’s lounging opposite Chirrut. “We’ll be alright.”

Bodhi mutters to himself, but he turns back to the controls. 

Jyn moves to the side viewport. She spent years roaming the galaxy, but even hidden behind layers of false names, entire false lives, she’d never before dared to return to Coruscant. 

She has to admit, as much as she hates the Empire, its capital planet is pretty stunning. 

Their approach has them coming in on the night side, the system’s bright star shrouded behind the planet’s bulk. In the dark, the city that covers the planet’s surface gleams with a trillion tiny lights, an artificial echo of the deepest parts of space. 

All Jyn has of this planet is vague memories. Flashes of buildings and opulent rooms. Her father’s voice rising and falling in the next room over. Her mother’s dark eyes. Krennic’s white cape.

She doesn’t realize she’s clenching her fists until Cassian’s hand brushes hers. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says. She loosens her grip enough that he can slip his fingers between hers, takes comfort from the familiar feel of his skin. “Just… memories.”

He gives her a confused look. She raises an eyebrow. “I’m surprised the Rebellion didn’t tell you. I lived here, once, when I was very young.”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t know.”

She shrugs. “I barely remember it.” She barely remembers Lah’mu, either, just flashes of green and brown fields. And the cave, of course. 

Cassian is quiet for a moment. “I grew up on Fest,” he says eventually. “Well. Until I was six.”

Jyn glances at him. “I’ve never heard of it,” she admits. 

His mouth quirks slightly. “Not much to hear about,” he says. “I don’t remember much, either.” He looks out the viewport at the planet below. “It was… quiet.”

Jyn snorts. “So the opposite of Coruscant, then.”

Cassian bobs his head slightly. “Pretty much.”

That probably says something about them, Jyn thinks, but she’s not interested in putting too much stock in that. 

“Are you gonna be okay?” Cassian asks, voice low.

Jyn glances at him again, startled by the question. “Yeah,” she says. “I’ll be fine. Like I said, it was a long time ago.” It’s not a lie. She will be, she’s sure of that, even though at the moment her gut is roiling with a confusing mixture of nausea and nostalgia. 

His hand feels good on hers, her back warm from the heat of his body only a couple of inches away. She leans back into him, just a little. He freezes for an instant, but then the hand that’s not entwined with hers circles her waist, almost tentative, like he’s expecting her to pull away. Their… whatever it is… isn’t a secret, far from it, but they don’t make a habit of displaying much affection around the others. But right now, pulling away is the last thing on Jyn’s mind. 

She’s spent a lot of time alone. She’s discovering she likes being touched. 

He relaxes after a moment, and she feels him breathe against her as Coruscant rolls by below them. 

Bodhi clears his throat. “We’re making our approach.”

Cassian’s lips brush the side of Jyn’s head, the barest touch, then he moves away. Bodhi did a fantastic job lying their way into Scarif, but here in the heart of Imperial territory, they don’t want to take any chances. 

“Go ahead and hail flight control,” Cassian says.

“Hailing,” Kaytoo says.

“Unidentified ship,” a voice crackles over the comm. “We’re not getting any transponder codes. What’s going on?”

Cassian leans between Bodhi and Kaytoo to take the headset and settle it over his head. “Sorry about the transponder, had a bad storm coming out of Thyferra. We’re running a bacta shipment for Zaltin. Transmitting codes now.” He nods to Kaytoo. 

“Transmitting,” Kaytoo says. 

Jyn tunes out the rest, letting the sound of Cassian’s familiar voice wash over her in comforting waves without bothering to retain the words. The kyber necklace is warm around her neck. Coruscant is as different from Lah’mu as it’s possible to be, she muses. 

She wonders which planet her mother preferred. 

Movement from the cockpit. “Take us in, Kay,” Cassian says, pulling the headset off. He moves into the back, Bodhi trailing behind him, and produces a handful of ID holocards. “Scandocs,” he says. “Fake identities for each of us. Make sure you memorize the details. The Empire’s hurting, but if we do get stopped, you’ve got to get it right.”

Jyn takes hers and looks it over. Ravet Connor, native of Garos IV, security detail. Straightforward enough. 

Cassian finishes passing out the scandocs. “We’re here to deliver our cargo, take a couple of days to sightsee, totally normal,” he says, nodding to the crates packing the back of the ship. “Baze, Chirrut, we picked you up on Thyferra as passengers to make a couple of extra credits.”

“What about Kaytoo?” Jyn asks. “Won’t an Imperial droid look odd coming in on a civilian ship?”

Cassian nods. “It would… except that my cover comes with a few strategic inconsistencies. Weird security clearances, dates that don’t quite match up, that sort of thing.”

“So add in Kaytoo…” Jyn says.

“And you look like you’re undercover for the Empire,” Bodhi finishes, sounding impressed. 

“Which means no one looks too hard at the rest of us,” Jyn adds. She shakes her head. “That’s clever.”

“We’ve done it before,” Cassian says, but he looks quietly pleased. “No one believes an Imperial droid could be reprogrammed, so they buy the story.”

“Because they are stupid and unobservant,” Kaytoo chimes in.

“I’m guessing the Empire likes it that way,” Jyn says. Bodhi nods slightly in agreement. 

“For us, that’s a good thing,” Cassian says. 

“So what’s the plan?” Baze asks. “We’re here to recruit. How do we do that?”

“I have a few contacts,” Cassian says, “Bartenders. Smugglers. Thieves. People who will spread the word that we’re in town, that the Rebellion is ready to fight and it needs their help. With the Empire bleeding, maybe we can get people who were too scared before to sign up. Jyn, Bodhi, you’ll be with me. Baze, Chirrut, and Kaytoo, you’ll be watching our backs. Stay close, but not too close. In two days, we pick up some new cargo and get out of here.”

Kaytoo’s head swivels around again. “Entering atmosphere now,” he announces. “Ten minutes to landing pad.”

Cassian looks around at all of them. “Okay, here we go. Get ready.”

They disperse: Bodhi to the helm to help with the descent, Chirrut and Baze and Cassian to change into civilian clothes. Jyn is already dressed the part, doesn’t even have a Rebel insignia to cover up. Oh, Draven gave her her sergeant’s pips before they left (he didn’t look happy about it, but he did), but she hasn’t worn them. They’re languishing somewhere in the bottom of her bag. 

Chirrut and Baze return first. They look strange in civilian clothes; Chirrut especially looks bizarre without his robes, though he looks perfectly comfortable in the understated suit he’s chosen. Baze, on the other hand, looks distinctly uncomfortable, tugging at his shirt. He grumbles something about his armor. Chirrut smiles and reaches up, gathering his partner’s hair with gentle hands into a tail at the back of his neck. “You’ll be fine,” he says. “The Force is with us.” 

Baze groans, but he leans down to bump his forehead against Chirrut’s. 

Jyn’s still smiling when Cassian returns. He’s smoothed his hair down into perfect order, the lines of his clothes cut just a little too clean to look truly civilian. It’s impressive; ‘undercover agent’ is a hard line to walk, but he’s clearly had a lot of practice. 

“We’re coming in,” he says. “Ready?”

Jyn glances at the others. She’s nervous, sure, but she’s excited, too, and she sees that reflected back at her from each of her teammates. 

Her _team_. 

She smiles. “Let’s do this.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What are you offering?” the unnamed woman asks.
> 
> Jyn turns her attention to the table for the first time. “A chance to win,” she says. Cassian glances at her, startled, but he doesn’t interrupt. “Resources,” she continues, “Backup. Retribution.”

Bodhi fully expects, when he leaves the ship to follow Jyn and Cassian into the teeming crowds of Coruscant, to spend the entire 48 hours they would be on the planet in the steadfast grip of fear. It is, after all, the center of the Empire. The Emperor himself is just over the horizon, and that’s entirely too close for comfort. Once, it would have paralyzed him. Once, he would have begged to be left behind on Yavin IV where it was (relatively) safe.

Not anymore. Whatever else he might think about the days after his defection, they’d certainly helped him grow accustomed to fear. He hadn’t had the option then of letting it stop him, and he doesn’t allow himself that option now. It’s not that he enjoys being afraid, far from it, but it’s… familiar.

And besides, he finds very quickly that the fear takes a backseat to awe.

“I didn’t know there were this many people in the entire galaxy,” he says, dazed. Humans of every size, shape, color, and class; aliens dotting the crowd here and there of varieties he’d never seen before (not that he was particularly well-traveled, to be fair), all weaving this way and that through each other on their own personal business. And beyond the people, the horizon, studded with tall buildings spearing up into the sky. He almost can’t tell it’s nighttime; the sky glows faintly with the light of the city.

Cassian doesn’t seem to notice, focused on guiding them to their first meeting of the night. How he’s doing that in the absolutely dizzying throng, Bodhi has no idea. But Jyn glances over her shoulder at him, flashing a wry smirk. “Far cry from Jedha, huh?”

A pang of grief shoots through his chest. Bodhi swallows it down. “A bit.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” she says. “I hear it’s not nearly this pretty where we’re going.”

Pretty’s not the word Bodhi would have used. Dazzling, maybe. Overwhelming, certainly.

“Quit gawping,” Jyn says after a moment. “This isn’t a tourism zone. You’ll draw attention.”

Bodh nods and, with effort, tears his eyes away from the skyline to focus on not losing Jyn in the crowd. He tries to resist the urge to look around for Baze, Chirrut, and Kaytoo, and mostly succeeds.

Soon enough, they start descending. Sometimes in lifts, sometimes through extremely sketchy stairways, but always down, deeper into the bowels of the city. It makes sense, Bodhi thinks; they’re hardly going to find willing recruits among the upper crust. That doesn’t stop his heart from sinking as the city gets dimmer and dingier with each level down.

“How deep does it go?” he mutters to Jyn.

She shrugs. “Thousands of layers, I’ve been told.”

“Thousands?” Bodhi repeats. Jyn nods. His head spins. _How many_ people must there be to take up that much space, over the entire planet’s surface?

It’s one thing to know intellectually that trillions of people live on Coruscant. It’s quite another, as it turns out, to witness that kind of scale. He’s beginning to see why they might be able to slip through unnoticed.

It feels like forever before they finally stop descending, but Bodhi’s pretty sure they’re only a few hundred levels down. Cassian leads them through the (now decidedly less dazzling) crowd to a seedy-looking cantina.

It’s crowded, but not enormously so. It’s well past the planet’s midnight by now, after all, even if it’s hard to keep track of the usual rhythms this far down. Cassian crosses to the bar, where a tired-looking woman is cleaning, and exchanges a few murmured words with her. Bodhi’s surprised to see him flash a smile, even if it is a brief one.

Cassian leads them to an empty booth. Bodhi slides in first, then Cassian, then Jyn takes the outside seat, her eyes scanning the crowd coolly.

“Do you know her?” Bodhi asks Cassian quietly, nodding to the bartender.

He nods. “Long story. She saved my life once.”

Bodhi blinks. “Really?”

“I’ll tell you about it sometime,” Cassian says.

“I want to hear it, too,” Jyn says, without taking her eyes off the room.

Cassian shakes his head, but he’s smiling faintly. “Our contacts should be here soon,” he says.

“Who are they?” Jyn asks.

“A couple of Alderaanian smugglers,” Cassian says, voice dropping casually until it’s only just loud enough for Bodhi to hear. “They’ve never been willing to meet with me before today.”

“Trouble?” Jyn asks.

“Maybe,” Cassian says. “Or maybe they’re angry.”

Bodhi can understand that. When he remembers Jedha, it’s mostly with grief, and an ample side of terror. But there’s anger there, too, smoldering under the surface. Maybe one day he’ll even figure out what to do with it.

It’s not long before two women slide into the booth opposite them. Bodhi feels Cassian’s shoulders tense, just slightly, but his face stays completely relaxed.

Bodhi tries not to stare as he takes in the two newcomers. One, sharp-featured, with suspicion in her narrowed brown eyes, has her hair twisted into two small buns on the sides of her head in a style Bodhi recognizes from the first time he saw Princess Leia. The other, rounder, her expression a little less guarded, has her hair buzzed close to her scalp and a scar cutting under one eye.

“So,” Cassian says casually, “Which one of you is Rieve?”

The woman with the buzzcut nods. “That would be me. You’ll forgive my partner if she’s not willing to give her name just yet.”

“Of course,” Cassian says. “I’m Levi Antares. These are my associates, Ravet and Deke.”

“Are those your real names?” the unnamed woman asks.

Cassian smiles, unperturbed. “They’ll do for now.”

Rieve nods. “Fair enough.”

Cassian folds his hands on the table. “So. What can the Rebellion do for you?”

“Isn’t it what we can do for the Rebellion?” Rieve counters, a hint of challenge in her tone.

He shrugs. “Can’t it be both?”

“What are you offering?” the unnamed woman asks.

Jyn turns her attention to the table for the first time. “A chance to win,” she says. Cassian glances at her, startled, but he doesn’t interrupt. “Resources,” she continues, “Backup. Retribution.”

A fire lights in the unnamed woman’s eyes, but Rieve seems unmoved. “All I’ve heard,” she says slowly, “Is a lot of tall tales. Hard to sort out fact from fiction these days.”

“Surely you don’t trust what the Empire tells you,” Jyn says.

Rieve cracks a small, wry smile. “I’m not sure I trust you, either. If this… planet killer was as strong as I’ve heard, how did a few measly X-wings manage to take it down?”

Cassian glances at Jyn. “We had some help from the inside,” he says after a moment.

Rieve’s eyebrows rise. “Really.”

“Do you have any proof?” her partner asks.

Jyn glances pointedly at Bodhi. Suddenly, both of the smugglers are looking at him as well. Heat creeps up the back of his neck, and he fights the urge to wring his hands. “I was a pilot. Imperial. A shuttle pilot,” he says slowly. “I—one of the scientists, he asked me to take a message to the Rebellion. Said I could make a difference. And, well. Here we are.”

Rieve blinks. “You defected?”

Bodhi nods.

“That’s impressive,” the partner says, “If it’s true.”

“Here,” Jyn says, and slides a small holopad across the table to them. “Look familiar?”

Bodhi leans forward, catches a glimpse of his own tired face staring up from the holopad’s screen. He recognizes the image immediately: an Imperial wanted ad.

“I remember this,” Rieve says. She glances up at Bodhi, then back at the image. “It went out right before that mining accident on Jedha.”

“That was no accident,” Cassian says quietly.

Bodhi can see the moment of realization on both of the smugglers’ face, almost simultaneously. It’s the partner who speaks first: “They tested it.”

He nods.

Rieve drums her fingers thoughtfully. Then she taps on the holo. “Mind if I keep this? Might be useful to show the others.”

“Take it,” Cassian says.

“Does that mean--?” Bodhi blurts.

Rieve gives him a small, tired smile. “I’d already decided when I walked in that door, _Deke._ I don’t take kindly to my planet being made an example of.” She taps the holo again. “This is for those who need a little extra convincing.”

“That’s enough proof?” Jyn asks, sounding skeptical.

“That and my word,” Rieve says. “I may be a smuggler, but I’m no liar. Except to Imperials.”

“The Princess,” the partner says suddenly. “Did she…?”

Cassian hesitates. Then nods, and smiles, just slightly.

Both smugglers let out a breath, a subtle tension draining from their faces. “Alright, Antares,” Rieve says. “We’ll see what we can do.”

“Glad to hear it,” Cassian says. He passes her a data chip. “For finding us, when you’re ready.”

Rieve nods and slides out of the booth. Her partner follows, then pauses. She holds a hand out to Bodhi. “Avan Marr.”

Tentatively, Bodhi grasps it.

“Looking forward to flying with you,” Avan says. Then she follows Rieve out of the room.

Bodhi lets out a shaky breath. “Are these meetings always like that?”

“No,” Cassian says. “That one was easy.”

Bodhi groans.

“What was that chip you gave them?” Jyn asks. “Not the location of the base?”

Cassian shakes his head. “Directions to a comm buoy, out on the rim. And a code to send through it, one use only. That way, we choose when to make contact.”

Jyn nods. “Paranoid. That’s good.”

“Captain.”

Bodhi starts. The voice came from a little speaker set into the table, but as he scans the room… The bartender hasn’t looked at them this whole time, but as he looks, her eyes flicker their way.

“Go,” the speaker says. “Go now.”

Cassian moves immediately, nudging Jyn out of the booth so he can stand. Jyn’s hand drops to her blaster, hidden under her jacket. “No,” Cassian murmurs. “Not yet. We can get out clean.”

Bodhi’s heart pounds against his ribs so hard he’s a little afraid it’s going to burst straight through. He follows his friends – not out the front, where they came in, but behind the bar instead. They emerge into a side alley, dim and cramped and smelly.

Over the voices of the crowd on the street, Bodhi can faintly make out the crackling of Stormtrooper radios.

“What are they doing down here?” Jyn hisses. Her hand drops to her gun again, but she curses and pulls it away.

Bodhi hears an electronically filtered voice say, “Check the alley.”

Cassian and Jyn exchange a look. Then, Jyn turns to Bodhi. “Play drunk.”

“What?” he stammers.

“Drunk. Now!” she hisses, and shoves him roughly to his knees. He plants his hands on the ground, doing his best impression of someone about to puke. At least he doesn’t have to fake the nausea, he thinks; his stomach is twisting with nerves just as much as it would have with drink. His chest hurts.

“What’s going on down here?” a trooper’s voice asks, closer now.

“Our friend, he’s—“ Cassian says.

“Had a bit too much,” Jyn finishes, a bit of softness around the edges of her consonants that suggests she might’ve been drinking too. Bodhi would be impressed, if he wasn’t so terrified.

“Let’s see some scandocs,” the trooper says.

Bodhi’s stomach abruptly revolts from sheer nerves, and he retches, coughs, and shudders.

“On second thought,” the trooper says, his disgust evident even through his voice filter. “Get him out of here. This alley’s dirty enough as it is.”

His friends grip his arms and pull him to his feet. Bodhi tries briefly to get his legs under him, but Jyn nudges him off balance again before he can manage it. He takes the hint, even through the haze of fear, and stays limp. They pull his arms over their shoulders, one on each side, and half-carry him out of the alley.

They round a few more corners that way before Cassian finally mutters, “Clear.”

Bodhi gathers himself as best he can and stands, retrieving one arm so he can rake sweat-soaked hair out of his face. “That was…” he starts shakily.

“Close,” Cassian says.

“Very close,” Jyn agrees.

“You don’t usually see troopers this far down,” Cassian says, brow furrowed in thought.

“Should we leave?” Bodhi asks. He’s still a little woozy, but his stomach is beginning to settle, and the pounding in his chest is slowing.

“No way,” Jyn says. “We came all this way. I’m not giving up because of a couple of overzealous bucketheads.”

Cassian rubs his chin, considering. “We stay,” he says finally. “But we should let Baze and Chirrut know to stay a little closer.”

Jyn nods. “Are you okay?” She asks Bodhi, suddenly. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

His knees are throbbing a little, but it’s nothing he can’t handle. Bodhi shakes his head. “I’m okay.” More damaging is the fear, the knowledge of how close they just came to falling into the Empire’s clutches. And that was just the first meeting.

He thinks about the look on Avan’s face when she learned Leia was alive, the strength in her grip on his hand. How many more are there like her, just waiting for someone to offer them the choice?

“Let’s go,” he says, and follows his friends back into the crowd.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What’s the plan?” Baze says. The troopers could be down here for unrelated reasons… but he doubts it. 
> 
> Chirrut flashes him a grin. “Improvise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay in getting this up! This was a fun one.

Baze Malbus has never been to Coruscant before. Until recently, he’d never really left Jedha (never saw the point), but even if he had, an overcrowded industrial megacity would not have been high on his list of places to visit. Every time a stranger brushes a little too close, every shout or bang heard over the background rumble of the crowd ratchets up the itchy, uncomfortable tension inside him.

Someone treads on his foot as he follows Chirrut down the thousandth overpacked, dark street of the day, and he growls, “I hate this city.”

“It’s not so bad,” Chirrut says cheerfully. Easy for him to say, Baze thinks sourly. Even in this crowd, most people see the staff tapping away in front of Chirrut and give him a little more space. Baze is taking advantage of that as much as he can, sticking close to his partner, but it’s not working very well. He had been leading at first, tracking their friends through the city by sight, but it proved too hard to do in the throng. Easier for Chirrut to follow the kyber crystal Jyn Erso still wears.

They round a corner and Baze glimpses the trio stepping through the door of yet another of Coruscant’s ever-present, practically interchangeable cantinas. It’s the fifth or sixth of the night – he’s lost count by now – and since that first one, they haven’t had any further trouble.

Not that that means they’re not in danger. Baze scans the street. “Over here,” he says, and leads Chirrut to an alcove with a boarded-up door tucked inside, across and a few yards down from the cantina’s entrance. A couple of shallow steps leading up to it give Baze just enough of a boost in height that he can scan the crowd for telltale white helmets.

Chirrut settles down to sit with a sigh, head cocked as he listens to the crowd.

“Hear anything?” Baze asks.

“Nothing in particular,” Chirrut says thoughtfully. “But there is… tension.”

It’s hard to put aside his own tension, but Chirrut’s instincts are never wrong. Baze concentrates for a moment. It’s nothing he can put his finger on, either; something about people walking just a little too hurriedly, talking a little too quietly. Some of it might be because of the late hour, but…

“What’s causing it?” he wonders aloud.

“That is the question,” Chirrut says.

Baze drums his fingers on his leg, wishing he had more than a tiny little joke of a blaster for backup right now. He scans the crowd again – and sees a familiar tall form headed their way.

“Loitering is prohibited on this level of the city,” Kaytoo says as he arrives. “If you are trying to blend in, perhaps you should do so more legally.”

“This is the undercity,” Baze points out. “No one cares.”

Kaytoo eyes him for a long moment. “That’s true,” he concedes.

Baze isn’t quite sure what to make of the droid. It’s hard to put aside all the times he saw similar ones ransacking his temple, or ‘subduing’ innocent civilians who happened to be in the way of an Imperial operation. But Jyn, of all people, seems to trust Kaytoo implicitly. And he is the only one of them who, technically, didn’t make it off Scarif alive. He’s earned the benefit of the doubt.

Kaytoo turns to scan the street. Baze does as well, and notices more than a few suspicious looks thrown their way.

“Seems people don’t care for Imperial droids down here,” he says.

“I am detecting significant hostility,” Kaytoo agrees. “I will circle the block.” He looks at Baze. “Please do not let Cassian get killed while I am gone.” And he strides away, his long legs cutting a swath through the crowd.

“I’m not sure if I should be offended by that,” Baze muses, more for Chirrut’s benefit than any actual offense. The droid is blunt, sure, but Baze kind of prefers it that way. It’s simple.

Chirrut rewards him with an absent smile over his shoulder, sending a pang of warmth through Baze’s chest. Baze turns his attention back to the crowd –

and tenses at a glimpse of white helmets rounding the corner. “Chirrut,” he says, all joking gone from his voice.

“Where?” his partner asks instantly.

“Your right, end of the block. Maybe fifty meters,” Baze says. He resists the urge to go for his blaster, barely.

Chirrut’s head turns and tilts as he listens. Baze keeps quiet. His partner’s hearing is exceptional, but there’s enough extra noise to parse in this place without him adding to it unnecessarily.

“I have them,” Chirrut says.

“What’s the plan?” Baze says. They could be down here for unrelated reasons… but he doubts it.

Chirrut flashes him a grin. “Improvise.” And he gets up and starts across the street, on a clear intercept course with the group of Stormtroopers. Baze follows at a slight distance, close enough to help if it goes wrong but far enough that they don’t necessarily seem to be moving together. His hand settles on the grip of his hidden blaster, just in case.

As he nears them, Chirrut slows, his steps becoming less sure, his staff tapping more actively. The troopers don’t seem to notice, their radios crackling as they chatter to each other.

And then the front trooper cries out in surprise and goes down hard, Chirrut’s staff tangled in his legs.

“What the—“ one of the others says.

“How clumsy of me,” Chirrut says, as though the trooper hadn’t spoken. “Here, let me just—“ He yanks his staff free, and it somehow flies up to crack the nearest trooper under the jaw. The man lets out a pained grunt and collapses.

“Oh dear,” Chirrut says, “Are you alright?”

Baze stifles a grin. Seems his partner has the situation well in hand, the remaining troopers too baffled by what’s happening to know what to do. He brushes past the commotion to poke his head inside the cantina.

It’s gone from late night to early morning by now, so the room is nearly empty of patrons. It’s not hard to spot his team, seated at a table with a clear view of the door. Cassian glances up at the _whoosh_ of the door opening, and meets Baze’s eyes.

Baze only pauses for an instant before continuing to scan the room, as though he hadn’t seen the person he was ostensibly looking for. Then, at the bartender’s questioning look, he grunts and withdraws. They’d worked out a simple system before leaving the ship; Baze or Chirrut entering the bar at all was a signal to leave, while speaking was a sign of particular urgency.

Out on the street, Chirrut stands in the middle of a small heap of groaning, white-armored bodies, hands clasped atop his staff and an innocently perplexed look on his face.

“Let’s go,” Baze says.

Chirrut nods and steps over the troopers, managing to give one that’s struggling upright a hefty kick in the ribs as he goes. “Oops.”

Baze lets himself grin this time. He turns just soon enough to see Kaytoo stop on the edge of the crowd and looks at the pile of Stormtroopers. If the droid had eyebrows to raise, Baze gets the distinct impression he would be doing so. But people are watching, and they do have a cover to maintain, so all he says is, “What happened here?”

“I have no idea,” Chirrut says. “I’m blind, you see.”

“They were clumsy,” Baze says. And they were, but to be fair, everyone looks clumsy next to Chirrut.

Behind the droid, Cassian, Jyn, and Bodhi emerge from the alley beside the cantina. Cassian glances at the downed troopers, a smile quirking at the corners of his mouth. Bodhi blinks at them, then looks at the crowd like he can’t quite believe there’s not a bigger commotion. Jyn looks openly amused. Her eyes meet Baze’s, and he finds it hard not to return her grin.

“Come on,” Cassian says after a moment, ostensibly to his two companions but more than loud enough for the others to hear. “It’s getting late.” They turn and head off down the street. Baze figures that means they’re done for the night, which he’s grateful for; he’s not used to holding this much tension for this long. And they still have more than a day left on this Force-forsaken planet.

Kaytoo glances at the troopers again. “I will need to file an incident report,” he says, and strides away in the same general direction as their team went. Baze and Chirrut follow a moment later, Baze letting his partner lead once more. He realizes as they walk that a little bit of the tension has eased out of him. A few hiccups are inevitable, doing something like this, and so far they’ve made it through unscathed. Maybe they can get through the rest the same way.

And if they get to beat up some Stormtroopers while they’re at it, well, so much the better.

“Next time, it’s my turn,” he mutters to Chirrut.

Chirrut laughs. “Fair enough.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He settles on the couch to work on the mission report while the details are still fresh in his mind. The sound of the others puttering around in the kitchen – murmuring voices, the crinkle of ration bar wrappers, footsteps – are surprisingly soothing rather than distracting. He’s used to lonely nights spent trying to sleep, alone in hostile territory with no one but Kay for company. As fond as he is of the droid, having other warm bodies to share the space with is… nice. Even though he’s intensely aware that they’re relying on him to get them through this alive, it’s nice to have backup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So every two days was a bit overly optimistic of me; the chapters for this one are longer and more plot-driven than others, which is taking longer than I'd like. Hopefully it's worth the wait!

The rooms Cassian has rented for them (ostensibly through his alias, though the owner probably at least suspects his true identity) are several levels down from their last meeting of the day. On the way, he keeps his eyes peeled for any more trouble, ignoring the occasional murmur from Jyn and Bodhi.

Two close calls isn’t technically that bad, all things considered. Especially since they’re in an area of Coruscant known for a high concentration of Alderaanian transplants, and with the recent destruction of the planet, it stands to reason the Empire would be ready for unrest. They haven’t even had to show their scandocs yet, managing to slip away without getting caught.

And yet.

He’s had a lot of time to hone his instincts. Something’s off about the situation, something niggling at the back of his mind. Some connection between the incidents that he’s not quite seeing.

He works the problem over in his head right up until they arrive at their accommodations, to no avail. Maybe he’s just tired. He doesn’t know what time it is on Yavin right now, but space lag is a bitch on the body, and his internal clock is thoroughly confused. It’s a hard feeling to fight.

He’s not sure what exactly to expect from the rooms he’s rented, having gotten them on the recommendation of an old, trusted contact. It turns out to be a small apartment, cramped dimensions but surprisingly clean, above what appears to be a more or less legal pawn shop. Not bad for a place just over a thousand levels deep.

Baze and Chirrut arrive a few minutes after he, Jyn, and Bodhi do. The taller Guardian has to duck slightly to clear the doorway, but he doesn’t complain. Cassian locks the door behind them; Kay, being able to run several days straight without powering down, will stay outside to keep watch.

“Nice save back there,” Jyn says to the Guardians.

“What happened?” Bodhi asks, “How did you keep them from raising an alarm?”

Chirrut smiles. “People often underestimate what they do not understand.”

“He made it look like an accident,” Baze clarifies.

Cassian raises his eyebrows. “You made taking out half a dozen Stormtroopers look like an accident.”

Chirrut shrugs. “They think that because I am blind, I must also be clumsy.”

Cassian hasn’t technically seen the Guardian in action since Jedha City, but that’s more than enough for him to know that Chirrut is about as far from clumsy as it’s possible to be.

All he says, however, is: “Get some rest.” They’ll lay low for the daytime, but they have another long night ahead of them, and he can see the fatigue weighing on them all.

He settles on the couch to work on the mission report while the details are still fresh in his mind. The sound of the others puttering around in the kitchen – murmuring voices, the crinkle of ration bar wrappers, footsteps – are surprisingly soothing rather than distracting. He’s used to lonely nights spent trying to sleep, alone in hostile territory with no one but Kay for company. As fond as he is of the droid, having other warm bodies to share the space with is… nice. Even though he’s intensely aware that they’re relying on him to get them through this alive, it’s nice to have backup.

Chirrut and Baze are the first to disappear into the back, followed shortly by an exhausted-looking Bodhi. The pilot’s holding up better than Cassian expected, if he’s totally honest with himself. It’s impressive. Bodhi is so clearly anxious, terrified even, and he’s completely incapable of hiding that, but it doesn’t seem to slow him down for long.

A ration bar lands without ceremony atop Cassian’s holopad, adding a chunk of gibberish to the end of his carefully considered report. Cassian blinks.

“Workaholic Rebel majors need to eat too, you know,” Jyn says, plopping down on the couch near him.

“In a minute,” he says, and picks up the bar to set it aside.

Jyn snags the holopad out of his lap, pulling it out of his reach when he tries to grab it back.

“Jyn,” he says, exasperated.

“Eat,” she tells him. “Then you can have it back.”

He frowns at her, ignoring the way his stomach rumbles sullenly. “I was in the middle of…” But he knows that look. He’s not going to win this one.

Trailing off into a grumble, he unwraps the ration bar.

“That’s better,” Jyn says, a satisfied look replacing the stubborn frown on her face. She settles the holopad on her lap. “Mind if I…?”

Part of Cassian balks – used to his reports being classified – but the bigger part thinks it might be good to get a second opinion. So he nods.

They sit in a comfortable silence, Cassian munching his way through his tasteless excuse for a meal and vaguely wishing he had the time and equipment to cook a proper one. Jyn has her head bent over the holopad, lips pursed thoughtfully. He’s staring at her, a little, entranced by the way the light from the holo outlines her profile, but if she notices she doesn’t say anything.

He finishes off the ration bar and raises his eyebrows at her. “Satisfied?”

“Ecstatic,” she says, a faint teasing note in her voice. He holds out a hand for the holopad, and she reluctantly hands it back.

“You should get some sleep,” he says. He can see the fatigue in her eyes, in the droop of her shoulders.

“You should, too,” she counters immediately.

He probably should’ve seen that coming. “I will,” he says.

She gives him an arch look. “I thought you weren’t lying to me anymore.”

Cassian opens his mouth. Closes it again. He hadn’t meant it as a lie, but… he’s too keyed up, too aware of how vulnerable his team is. His mind races, running disaster scenarios, even as his body begs for rest. It’s a familiar problem, but amped up now that more than his own life is on the line.

When he doesn’t say anything in his own defense, Jyn huffs and slides closer to him, tucking herself against his side.

“What are you doing?” he asks, baffled. Angry cuddling is a new one.

“Staying up with you,” she says. “I’ll sleep when you do.”

Cassian tries for a moment to think of a way to convince her it’s not necessary – he’s gone a lot longer than this without sleep before, many times – but she’s got that stubborn set to her jaw again. Any argument he makes is going to fall on deaf ears.

So he sighs and turns his attention back to the report. He needs to get the details down quickly, his impressions of the potential allies they’ve met with, before too much time passes and he starts to lose them.

Jyn is stiff against him at first, but as he dredges through his memories of the night, she slowly relaxes. Her head drops gradually to his shoulder, her hair brushing lightly against the edge of his jaw. She breathes into him, little puffs of air across the skin of his neck, her chest rising and falling with soothing regularity against his arm. The rhythm deepens, and evens, until he’s pretty sure she’s dozed off but he doesn’t dare move to check.

He doesn’t realize he’s fallen asleep until a sudden pounding on the door jolts them both awake. Jyn pulls away, her head abruptly disappearing from under Cassian’s cheek. He’s a split second behind her, lurching to his feet as well.

The pounding comes again, and Jyn pulls her blaster, holding it low against her thigh.

“Open up,” a filtered voice calls. “We know you’re in there.”

“How the hell did they find us?” Jyn hisses.

Cassian’s asking himself the same question. He shakes his head – no time. “Worry about that later,” he says. “Help me get the others.”

But before he can even complete the thought, Baze and Chirrut spill into the room, the former pulling a bleary-eyed Bodhi along with him.

“Run or fight?” Jyn asks. The fire in her eyes demands the latter, but there’s no way that ends well. Not with the troopers outside clearly expecting to find resistance within.

“We go out the back,” he says. Jyn scowls, but she nods, shoving her blaster back into its holster.

The apartment’s back door (and of course it has one; Cassian wouldn’t be caught dead in a place with only one exit) is in the 'fresher, of all places, disguised as a closet. It opens onto a narrow metal catwalk that traces along the back of the building, clearly added by an owner who didn’t want to be cornered, either.

Cassian has one leg out the door when he remembers the holopad. He freezes. He can’t leave it behind, even though he can hear the Stormtroopers now attempting to batter down the door. He’d fallen asleep before he’d gotten the chance to encrypt it properly; the details of all of their meetings are in the open, ripe for the troopers to track down all his contacts.

He turns back – and sees Jyn squeeze into the already-crowded fresher, the holopad in her hand. She sees him looking and flashes a quick, strained smile. “I’ve got it. Go.”

He does. She follows immediately after him, the holopad tucked away somewhere, her hand on the grip of her blaster. Bodhi slips out behind her, with Baze and Chirrut bringing up the rear.

“Where’s Kaytoo?” Jyn asks quietly as they sidle along the catwalk.

Cassian shakes his head. He’s been trying to avoid asking himself that same question, but there’s a creeping dread growing inside him just the same. The droid should have raised an alarm.

The path terminates at a ladder leading down into an alleyway a level down from their accommodations. Cassian’s mind works, mapping possible routes, deciding which of the half-dozen bolt holes in this sector would be the best for them to go to ground.

Bodhi’s feet have just hit the alley floor when a shout rings out from the street. “Stop right there!”

Cassian’s heart stops. His hand snaps out to grab Jyn’s wrist before she can pull her blaster. She meets his eyes, furious green to his resigned brown. He shakes his head once.

Then he turns, pasting a smile on his face. “What seems to be the problem?”

His heart sinks as he takes in the situation. This isn’t just a stroke of bad luck, a random patrol that happened to be in the right place at the worst possible time. There are easily a dozen Stormtroopers in the alley, some advancing towards them, others hanging back by the street.

 _They knew_ , he thinks. Somehow, they knew to be watching this alley, despite the lack of apparent connection to the rooms above.

_Someone sold us out._

Something clicks in his mind, connections snapping into place. Anger boils in his chest. He pushes it to the side, tamping it brutally down. Time enough for rage later, if they get out of this mess alive.

The lead trooper reaches them. Cassian keeps his hands in plain sight, away from his hidden weapon; a glance behind him shows Jyn doing the same, though there’s a murderous light in her eyes. Bodhi quickly follows suit. The pilot’s poker face is terrible, his panic evident, but there’s nothing for it now but to try and keep the troopers’ attention on Cassian instead.

Baze and Chirrut are nowhere to be seen. Still above. At least they have one card up their sleeve.

“We’ve been informed that a team of rebel traitors is operating in this sector,” the lead trooper says. He has his blaster in hand, but it’s not pointed their way. Yet.

“Rebels? Really?” Jyn says. If Cassian didn’t know her as well as he does, he’s not sure if he would hear the hint of strain under her tone of innocent curiosity.

“We hadn’t heard anything about that,” he adds.

“What are you doing down here?” the trooper asks. “This is a private alley.”

“That’s my fault,” Bodhi says shakily. Cassian hides his surprise, but only barely. The pilot wrings his hands. “I don’t uh, I don’t do so well with crowds sometimes. I get a little – well,” and he gestures to himself, the way he’s trembling with nerves. It’s not a bad lie, Cassian thinks, impressed. Better than trying to deny his obvious panic, he’s turning it into a cover story.

For an instant, the troopers almost look like they’re going to buy it. Then one of them says, “Wait. I know you.”

The leader glances at him. “What?”

“That’s the pilot,” the trooper says. “The defector. From when I was stationed on Jedha.”

And then a half dozen blasters are pointed their way. “I think you’d better come with us,” the leader says.

Time seems to slow around Cassian as he sorts through their options. The odds are bad, even with the Guardians as an ace in the hole. Twelve troopers on alert. Twelve blasters aimed at him and his friends. They could fight, and probably win, but the odds of them doing so without one of them catching a stray blaster shot are very, very low. He doesn’t need Kay to tell him that.

As though thinking the droid’s name had summoned him, Cassian hears a familiar voice from the mouth of the alleyway. “Excuse me.”

And then the troopers near the street scatter like bowling pins, K-2 crashing into their midst like a metal juggernaut. The Stormtroopers nearer to Cassian turn, distracted by the commotion.

It’s the opening the Guardians have apparently been waiting for. Chirrut lands on the leader, his aim unerring, his feet driving the helmeted head into the ground with a sickening _crunch_. Two more go down to blaster shots from above, and the fourth and fifth to Chirrut’s whirling staff.

Cassian pulls his blaster and fires toward the street. He doesn’t hit anyone, intentionally aiming wide to avoid shooting Kaytoo by accident, but the troopers shout and scramble for cover, giving the droid a chance to turn and send another flying with a sweeping blow.

Baze lands on the final nearby Stormtrooper with another brutal _crack_ , and they make a run for the street. Jyn pulls a truncheon on the way and crashes into one of the remaining troopers with her full momentum behind her; the others fall quickly to Cassian’s suddenly lethal squad. Even Bodhi gets in a blow, distracting one of the troopers long enough for Baze to turn and plug him with a blaster shot to the skull.

“Cassian,” Kay says urgently once the final trooper falls. His shoulder is smoking slightly, but he otherwise seems unhurt. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop them; they knew.”

“I know,” Cassian says. “It’s okay. Thanks for the save.”

“Major,” Chirrut says suddenly, “End of the street.”

K-2 turns, his tall stature giving him a better vantage over the crowd. “Another squad incoming.”

“We can’t fight here,” Cassian says. It’s simultaneously too open, no cover for his increasingly outnumbered team, and too full of bystanders who are already screaming as the troopers fire wildly into the crowd.

“Based on my knowledge of the city’s layout,” Kay says, “I believe making for Bespin is our best bet.”

“Bespin?” Bodhi repeats, baffled. “But that’s—“

“It’s code,” Cassian says. “I’ll explain later.” He looks around, orients himself. The bolt hole Kay chose isn’t the closest, but it’s one of the better hidden ones, and their path to it gives them plenty of chances to lose their pursuers.

“Cover our backs,” he tells the droid. Jyn wordlessly passes the droid her blaster, almost comically tiny in Kaytoo’s huge hand. The droid accepts it with only a moment of hesitation and a barely perceptible nod. “Let’s move,” Cassian says, and the others race with him down the street. Cassian resists the urge to look back, listening instead to the breathing of his friends around him, the mechanical whirr of K-2's joints as the droid follows behind them.

The odds are against them. But then, he thinks wryly, they’re used to that by now.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She doesn’t realize she’s fallen until Cassian is beside her, his voice urgent. “Just a little bit further, Jyn, come on.” She grits her teeth, and, somehow, staggers back to her feet. Cassian holds her hand, lets her lean on him when the dizziness threatens to knock her down again.

They make it, but not unscathed.

Jyn remembers it mostly in flashes, fragments against a constant backdrop of dim, crowded streets and frantic shouting:

Bodhi, crying out and staggering, his hands clutching at his suddenly-smoking calf. Baze scooping him up before he can fall, tossing him over one shoulder without missing a stride.

Chirrut’s steady voice, his familiar prayer barely audible over the cacophony, mixing strangely with Kaytoo’s stream of updates regarding just how fucked they are.

An explosion of fire in her shoulder, her truncheon dropping from suddenly nerveless fingers. Cassian’s panicked eyes as he turns, her name echoing in her ears in his voice. Gritting out, “I’m fine, keep going.” Chirrut steadying her when she staggers.

They finally lose their pursuit a dozen levels up by ducking through a crowded morning market that forces the troopers following them to split up. Once they lose unit cohesion, it’s easier for Rogue One to disappear. It’s a mixed blessing, as it turns out; not getting shot at is a definite plus, but as the adrenaline rush wears down, the throbbing in Jyn’s shoulder grows harder to ignore. She focuses hard on Cassian’s back, on putting one foot in front of the other. She loses Chirrut’s voice under the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears, the agonized screaming of blaster-scorched nerves.

She doesn’t realize she’s fallen until Cassian is beside her, his voice urgent. “Just a little bit further, Jyn, come on.” She grits her teeth, and, somehow, staggers back to her feet. Cassian holds her hand, lets her lean on him when the dizziness threatens to knock her down again.

Confused, vivid memories jolt through her mind. Memories of fire, and pain. Tumbling across the platform on Eadu, the catwalk on Scarif. The cave blurs in her mind with the dimness of the elevator. Cassian’s hand in hers pulls her back, grounds her. She forces herself through one more step. Then another. And another.

She loses time. The next thing she remembers is hands on her face, rough with tension. “Jyn. Jyn! Look at me.”

Jyn blinks, blearily. Her feet aren’t moving anymore – she’s sitting, somehow, and behind Cassian’s drawn face are unfamiliar walls. The safe house. They made it.

“My shoulder,” she tells Cassian, more groan than real speech.

“I know,” he says. “Don’t fall asleep. Promise me.”

She manages a nod. Cassian reluctantly releases her, tells the others as he stands, “Keep them awake.”

Them? _Bodhi_ , she remembers. His leg. She forces her eyes open again (when did she close them?), finds him collapsed against the wall beside her, his face pale with pain. Baze is bent over his leg, peeling the scorched fabric away with gentle fingers. Jyn fumbles for Bodhi’s hand on the ground between them, finds it just in time for the pilot to hiss in pain and squeeze hers reflexively. She squeezes back, reassured by the strength in his grip. Blaster wounds can be tricky. She’s seen people live through much worse than they have, but she’s also lost friends to hits that should be all rights have been trivial.

But they’re both awake. That’s a good sign.

Cassian returns, dropping to his knees beside her with a large medkit in hand. He tosses one pack of bacta patches to Baze and tears open a second. “I have to get your shirt off,” he says.

Jyn nods. Cassian produces a set of shears from the kit as well. He’s careful, so careful, as he tugs at her clothes, but even so Jyn whites out at the pressure on her shoulder. She clamps down on a yelp of pain, squeezing Bodhi’s hand so hard she can feel his tendons creak in her grip. He gives as good as he gets, and eventually the deep, throbbing burn eases into a sullen smolder, covered over by the soothing chill of bacta.

Jyn finds her voice again then, and celebrates by working her way through the choicer curses she can remember from her time with Saw. “—bantha fucking sheb-suckers,” she finishes in Common.

“I have no idea what you said, but I second it,” Bodhi says fervently. Jyn looks over at him, sees the gleam of bacta patches peeking out from under his rolled-up pant leg. A little bit of the color has come back into his face.

“I guess you’re feeling better,” Baze says, the teasing note doing nothing to hide the relief in his voice.

Better is a strong word, but at least her shoulder doesn’t feel like it’s actively trying to disconnect from the rest of her body anymore. It’s an improvement. She looks back at Cassian; he’s hovering, uncertain, his hands half-extended towards her. There’s blood streaking his skin. Her blood.

He seems to realize it at the same time she does, picks up her discarded, shredded shirt to scrub his hands off. The motion’s not quite enough to hide the tremble in his fingers.

“What’s that now, four times you’ve saved my life?” Jyn says, giving her best shot at a teasing tone.

He glances at her, but doesn’t reply. His face has gone oddly flat, a stranger looking back at her from familiar eyes. “Cassian—“ she tries.

He stands, tossing the shirt aside briskly. “Our cover’s blown,” he says. “We need to get off planet.”

“I estimate it will be nightfall before the security alert drops enough for us to depart without encountering further issues,” Kaytoo says.

“Fantastic,” Bodhi says, letting his head fall back into the wall with a quiet _thunk_.

Cassian paces, his hands clasped behind his back and his shoulders tense. Jyn watches him, a sinking feeling in her gut. “They knew where to find us,” she says.

He glances at her. Nods.

“Someone told them.”

He nods again.

“You know who it was, don’t you, Major?” Chirrut says, quietly.

Cassian stops. “It doesn’t matter.”

Jyn trades a glance with Baze. “I feel like it matters,” Baze says.

“It doesn’t,” Cassian says. “What matters is getting all of us off this planet alive. So that’s what we’re gonna do.” There’s an edge to him that Jyn hasn’t seen since Eadu, something burning behind his eyes. No one says anything.

He turns to Kaytoo. “Is your shoulder okay?”

The droid rolls it once. “83 percent functional. It will do.”

“Good,” Cassian says. “Check on the ship. Get it as ready as you can without raising suspicion. Make sure we have enough fuel to get home.”

Kaytoo nods. He seems to realize he’s still holding Jyn’s tiny blaster, and holds it out to her. She raises an eyebrow. “Don’t you need that?”

“KX-series droids are usually unarmed,” he says, with a surprising lack of ‘duh’ in his tone. “It will draw unwanted attention. But thank you, Jyn Erso.”

She blinks, and accepts the blaster with her good hand, shoving it awkwardly back into its holster. “I went to a lot of trouble to steal you that chassis,” she says. “Try not to break it, yeah?”

If droids could roll their eyes, he absolutely would have. But instead he just nods and ducks out of the room.

The next few hours ooze by. They move Bodhi to a cot where he can stretch out his leg. Jyn waves off any attempt to move her – the wall is better support for her injury than anything softer would be – though a glare from Cassian gets her reluctantly forcing down a ration bar and a full canteen of water. After, she dozes, the dull throb in her shoulder the only thing to mark the passage of time.

She blinks away what feels like it might be hours later with a gummy, dry taste in her mouth—

to the sight of Cassian checking the charge on his blaster. The Guardians aren’t in the room, probably trying to catch up on sleep before their coming escape. Bodhi’s soft, wheezy snores echo in her ears.

Cassian shoves the blaster back into its holster. He stares at nothing for a moment, fingers clenched, a muscle in his jaw working almost imperceptibly. Then, abruptly, he turns for the door.

“Going somewhere?” Jyn asks. It comes out a little raspy.

Cassian freezes and looks back at her.

“I thought we were lying low,” she says.

“You need to rest,” he says.

“Where are you going?” she presses. When it doesn’t look like he’s going to answer, she struggles to get to her feet, hissing through her teeth as her shoulder protests the movement. She gets halfway up before a wave of dizziness almost topples her. Cassian moves to steady her.

“Jyn,” he says, pained.

“No more secrets,” she tells him, and if it’s a little breathless, she makes up for it in fervor. She meets his eyes. “Not from me.”

His eyes darken. She wraps her good hand around his wrist. It’s a weak grip at best, easily broken, but he doesn’t pull away. A vague sense of déjà vu creeps into her, and she almost laughs; it feels like they’ve been here before, except usually, it’s the other way around.

“Tell me,” she says, quietly. She can’t hold him here, not physically. If he decides to go, there’s not much she can do to stop him.

He sighs. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. Sit down.”

She lets him help her down again, wincing. She keeps her grip on his wrist, rubs her fingers across the now-familiar calluses on his palm. He sits next to her, letting out a long, slow breath.

She waits.

“The first time I was here,” he says finally, “I was undercover, working for a high-ranking Imperial officer.” His lips quirk. “I was young. I… made a mistake. I had to leave in a hurry. And I wouldn’t have made it out, except…”

“The bartender,” Jyn realizes.

Cassian’s head dips slightly in a nod.

“You think she’s the leak?”

His mouth twists in a grimace. “I don’t want to. It lines up. Her cantina, first. And the last one, the owner is a good friend of hers. And she recommended the rooms we got ambushed in.”

Jyn shakes her head. “But she warned us off, the first time.”

Cassian makes a frustrated sound. “I know. It doesn’t make sense. She’s never--  I would have never suspected her. I don’t want to. But.”

Jyn mulls it over. Cassian’s used to betrayal, she’s sure, both as the victim and perpetrator, but there’s something about this that feels personal. There’s hurt, under the anger in his eyes.

“That’s where you were going,” she says. “To confront her.”

Cassian frowns, but he nods.

“It could be a trap,” Jyn says.

“Could be,” he agrees wryly. Then, more seriously, “I need to know.”

Jyn nods, steels herself for the argument she knows is coming. “I’m going with you.”

“Jyn,” he says, in _that_ tone. “You’re hurt.”

“My legs work just fine,” Jyn says. “Give me a sling for this stupid arm and I’ll keep up.”

“It’s a bad idea,” he says.

“So is haring off alone,” she counters, almost cheerfully. “You can help me, or I’ll follow you on my own, but one way or another I’m coming with you.”

He lets out an amused, resigned little huff. Then he stills. His hand tenses in hers. “If she is the leak,” he says slowly, “I might have to kill her.”

A chill takes root in Jyn’s spine. It’s not the idea of killing that’s the problem – they all have a great deal of blood on their hands. She’s just not sure she’ll ever get used to talking about it so coldly.

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it,” she says eventually.

Some of the tension drains out of him, and he pushes himself up, reaching for the medkit. “I don’t think that’s the expression.”

“Close enough,” Jyn says.

He shoots her a look, but doesn’t argue, opting instead to keep digging through the kit.

Jyn watches him. The tension might have eased, but there’s still a darkness in his eyes, a coiled anger in every movement. The kyber crystal is cool against her skin.

 _The Force moves darkly around a creature who is about to kill_.

For Cassian’s sake, Jyn hopes he’s wrong. She doubts it, but she hopes all the same.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d trusted Kalla. That doesn’t happen very often. One thing he’s had to get used to as an Intelligence agent is the reality that anyone could betray him, on purpose or by accident, and many of them will do so at the slightest pressure from the Empire.

They leave the Guardians and Bodhi with instructions to head for the ship as soon as full dark hits, and to keep their comms on at all times. Baze claps a hand on Cassian’s shoulder in what he thinks is encouragement, and Chirrut murmurs something to Jyn as she adjusts her arm in the sling Cassian found in the medkit. Cassian resists the urge to ask her what he said as they head out.

Even with her arm mostly immobilized and a fresh layer of bacta patches over the wound in her shoulder, Cassian can tell Jyn’s still hurting. It’s in the way her jaw stays clenched, the short, pained puffs of air she blows out whenever someone bumps against her in the crowd. Without a word, he moves to walk on her left, doing his best to shield her injured arm from oblivious passersby. The corner of her mouth quirks slightly, but she doesn’t comment.

She’s slowing him down, but in a way, he’s kind of glad for it. It gives him more time to try and get a handle on the rage bubbling inside him. He turns the evidence over in his head as they move steadily towards the cantina, trying to find a hole. Trying desperately not to believe what cold logic is telling him.

He’d _trusted_ Kalla. That doesn’t happen very often. One thing he’s had to get used to as an Intelligence agent is the reality that anyone could betray him, on purpose or by accident, and many of them will do so at the slightest pressure from the Empire.

But Kalla had always been solid. She’d sheltered him long ago when, wounded and scared, he’d been sure his short run with the Rebellion had led him to his end. She’d fed him leads, from time to time, solid information from the heart of the Empire despite the danger it posed her. More importantly, he’d seen the hatred in her eyes when Imperial soldiers came to the cantina. They’d never talked about it – never talked much at all, really – but he’d seen an echo of his own rage and loss in her.

Her turning doesn’t make sense. His instincts say she would never willingly work for the Empire.

But willing or not, the evidence points to Kalla being the reason he’d almost lost two of his newly-minted team. She’d put his _friends_ in danger. And Jyn… His heart still stutters with fear in his chest thinking about how easily he could have lost her.

Jyn grabs him, startling him out of his thoughts, and drags him into a doorway. She twists so her injured arm is out of sight of the street. “Kiss me,” she says, and he instinctively obeys the urgency in her tone. It’s only as she presses against him, her good arm wrapping around his neck, that he hears the telltale sound of Stormtrooper boots on the metal street.

He’s distracted. Not thinking clearly. And even with the tension in both of their bodies, the warm slide of Jyn’s lips on his is _not_ helping him focus.

“I’ve always found kissing to be a particularly unpleasant organic pastime,” a familiar voice says.

Cassian breaks from Jyn’s mouth. She presses her face into his chest, her shoulders shaking, and he realizes she’s muffling her laughter in his shirt. “Kay,” he says, heat rising in his cheeks.

The droid cocks his head. “You didn’t leave the safe house just to – what is the phrase? – ‘suck face’, did you?”

Cassian’s a little surprised his face doesn’t literally burst into flames. “No,” he splutters, “Of course not.”

Jyn raises her head, her giggles mostly under control, though she looks hard-pressed to keep them that way when she sees the look on Cassian’s face. “The leak,” she says, “We’re tracking down the leak.”

Kaytoo nods. “Kalla Quizan.”

It doesn’t surprise Cassian that Kay’s figured it out, too, though his stomach ties itself in knots at the additional strike against her. “I think so,” he confirms reluctantly.

The droid’s eyes flicker, the way they sometimes do when he runs calculations. “There is a 76% chance that there will be additional Imperial forces present at the cantina.” His gaze moves to Jyn. “You are injured. I will provide additional backup.”

Jyn glances at Cassian. He shrugs. “He’s right.”

“Of course I’m right,” Kay says frostily. “It’s simple strategic analysis.”

Cassian shakes his head. “Let’s go. We don’t have time to waste.”

They reach the cantina without further incident, though by that time Jyn’s breath is coming in short, sharp gasps despite her best efforts to hide it. Cassian stops them near the end of the block. “Kay. What do you see?”

The droid scans the crowd. “There are pairs of troopers patrolling the block.” He pauses. “There is an approximately 9.2 second span where the door is not covered.”

“Get us in there,” Cassian says. They drift closer to the door, using the movement of the crowd for cover. They wait.

“Now,” Kay says, and they slip inside. Cassian doesn’t breathe until the door hisses shut behind them.

The cantina is completely empty. Whether that’s a symptom of the troopers circling the block or if it’s just too early in the day, Cassian doesn’t know. Either way, he’s glad for it. It makes things simpler.

Kalla stands behind the bar, cleaning a glass with one of her ever-present bar rags. She doesn’t look up at the sound of the door. “I told you already, _Sergeant_ ,” she says, in an even tone that does nothing to hide the disdain dripping from her voice, “I don’t know where they’ve gone. Looks like you’re gonna have to do your own damn job for once.”

“Actually,” Cassian says, “It’s ‘Major’ now.”

Kalla’s head snaps up. A slew of emotions flash across her face in quick succession – fear, anger, hope, something that almost looks like pride – before her expression settles on resignation. “Glad to see you’re still in one piece, Andor,” she says quietly.

“Are you?” Cassian says. He doesn’t draw his blaster, but his hand aches a little from how tightly he’s gripping it. A glance to his right shows that Jyn has her good hand ready, as well. The sling around her neck sends a fresh pang of fury through him, and he jerks his head at Kalla. “Come out from there.”

She gives him a wry look. “You don’t think those bastards left me my backup blaster, do you?” But she obeys, bringing the glass and rag with her, and sits on one of the bar stools where Cassian has a clear view of her hands.

“I wouldn’t know,” he says coolly, “Since you seem to be working for them now.”

Kalla doesn’t respond for a long moment.

“Unless,” Jyn says, “It’s not by choice.”

When the barkeep looks up, she doesn’t look angry or upset. She just looks tired. “Got it in one.”

“How?” Cassian asks sharply. He wants to believe her, but that’s exactly why he can’t. Not yet.

She smiles. It’s not a nice expression. “How do you think? Standard operating procedure, Major. Find the lever. Apply pressure.”

“Standard interrogation techniques call for finding a close family member,” Kay supplies helpfully.

“Who did they take?” Jyn asks.

Kalla’s fingers tighten until the glass creaks faintly with the force of her grip. “She was supposed to be safe,” she spits out. “Halfway across the galaxy, out of the Empire’s clutches. Either she was stupid, or the Empire went to a lot of trouble to find her.”

“Who?” Cassian asks.

“My younger sister,” Kalla says. “And her two kids.” She looks up, lets out a bitter little laugh. “You know, I always told myself this type of thing would never work on me. I thought I was stronger than this. I haven’t talked to my sister in years.” She turns the glass over in her hands. “Easier said than done, I guess.”

Cassian starts to pace, anger and betrayal and sympathy warring inside him in a disorienting tangle. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it isn’t your problem,” she says. Cassian stops. “I hoped you’d run,” she continues, “After that first close call. I was hoping you’d be scared off, get away clean.”

“They would kill you,” he says. “And your sister.”

Kalla shrugs helplessly. “They’re going to kill me anyway. I’m too deep in this mess. I’d hoped they might let her go, if I looked like I was cooperating.”

Cassian snorts. “The Empire isn’t known for its mercy.”

“No,” Kalla agrees. “It was a stupid move, hoping.” She takes a deep breath. “You should go. Get back to your Rebellion while you still can.”

Cassian hesitates. Intelligence officer logic says go, cut his losses and get his team off planet before he loses anyone. So does his fear, the part of him that keeps replaying the way Jyn collapsed when they reached the safe house, how close he came to losing her, and how soon. And Bodhi, too. It’s his job to protect them, isn’t it?

He glances at Jyn, sees the familiar stubborn set of her jaw, the gears working in her quick mind. If she knew he was considering running for her sake, she’d never forgive him for it.

“Where are they holding your sister?” she asks. Kalla’s head snaps up, and the spark of naked, honest hope in her eyes is enough for Cassian to shove the cold calculations aside. He’s not that person anymore. He can’t be. Jyn and the others, what they went through on Scarif – it burned the detachment right out of him, and he doesn’t want it back. He’s lost enough of his life to the cold mathematics of war and harsh decisions.

Something beeps quietly behind the bar. Kalla stiffens. “Proximity alert,” she says. “Someone’s coming.”

Cassian meets Jyn’s eyes, and the fire in them chases away any remaining thoughts of running for it. He nods, once. “They don’t know we’re here,” he says, glancing at Kalla long enough for her to confirm with a short nod. “Pick your shot carefully.”

Jyn grins wolfishly. “Finally,” she says, “Payback.”

They split – Cassian and Jyn hunker down in booths on either side of the door. Kay glances around, huffs slightly, and moves to crouch on the far side of Jyn’s cover. Cassian pulls out his blaster, checks its charge. He watches Kalla slip quickly back behind the bar. She sets the glass down carefully, but he sees the way her hands tremble.

She could still turn them in, he thinks. It might even buy her sister’s freedom.

It’s too late now. He’s chosen his path. He’s running on instincts, and his instincts say to trust her.

The door hisses open. An Imperial flunky in a familiar gray uniform steps into the cantina, flanked by two Stormtroopers. Cassian holds his breath. The door slides closed with a quiet _whoosh_ , and he lets the breath out slowly, allowing himself a small grin. Only two soldiers for backup? They’re overconfident. He can use that.

“I think you’re holding out on us, Miss Quizan,” the Imperial – whose rank pips indicate he’s the officer Kalla referred to – says. “Your Rebel friends have gone to ground. I think you know where.”

“I’m flattered you think so much of me,” Kalla says, her voice gone completely flat. “But I’m afraid you’re wrong.”

Cassian straightens slowly, careful not to bump the table and give away his position. He makes eye contact with Jyn, doing the same a few meters away. The Stormtroopers are the more immediate threat; he points to himself, then the one nearest to him. Jyn nods and takes aim at the further one, using the back of the booth to steady her one-handed grip on her weapon.

Cassian holds up three fingers.

Two.

One.

They fire. The Stormtroopers slump, dead before they even know it’s coming, fresh holes in the back of their helmets smoking faintly. Cassian can’t bring himself to feel any sympathy for them.

His foot gets caught as he slides out of the booth; by the time he extricates himself, the officer – faster than he’d anticipated – has the barrel of his blaster pointed square between Cassian’s eyes. He freezes. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Jyn and Kay do the same.

“Well, well,” the sergeant tuts, a smug smile curling his lips. “Looks like I’ve found our rebels after all.” He raises his voice. “Drop your weapons. Now.”

Cassian grits his teeth, but obeys, letting his blaster clatter to the floor with his hands carefully in sight. Jyn reluctantly does the same. Kay doesn’t move, unarmed as he is.

Behind the sergeant’s shoulder, Cassian catches a glimpse of movement. With effort, he keeps from looking directly at it, instead maintaining eye contact with the Imperial officer.

“Very good,” the man says. “Now, keep your hands where I can see them, and—“

He never finishes the sentence. A shot rings in the silence of the cantina, a flash of light from behind the man’s shoulder nearly blinding Cassian. The major throws himself down flat. It’s a good thing he does; the Imperial squeezes off a shot by reflex, the bolt lancing through the air where Cassian’s head was a moment before.

“Cassian!” Jyn yells, panicked.

He raises his head cautiously, blinking spots from his eyes, just in time to see the Imperial slump to the ground. A tiny trickle of blood runs down from the fresh hole between his startled eyes.

Behind him, Cassian can see Kalla, a tiny blaster pistol in her outstretched hand.

Jyn lands hard on her knees beside him, her usable hand gripping at his shoulder. He catches it in one of his own as he sits up. “I’m fine,” he tells her. “I’m not hit.”

She slumps in relief, forehead bonking into Cassian’s shoulder, and mutters a curse in what he tentatively pegs as Huttese. “Don’t scare me like that.”

He cups his free hand over the back of her neck, fingers twining gently in her hair, trying to reassure her with the contact. Across the room, Kay pulls the blaster from Kalla’s hand. She doesn’t fight him.

“I thought you said they’d taken your backup gun,” Cassian says.

Kalla glances at him, and grins. “They did. That’s my _backup_ backup gun. Always prepared, right?”

Kaytoo isn’t quite pointing the blaster at Kalla, but his stance says he’s considering it. Cassian waves him off. “Stand down, Kay.”

“There is still a 43% chance of betrayal,” Kay says.

Cassian meets Kalla’s eyes. “No,” he says after a moment, “There’s not.” She smiles, strained but genuine.

Jyn raises her head and glances at the Imperial bodies smoldering on the ground. “Well,” she says, eyebrow quirking upward. “Looks like we’re all set for disguises.”

“Kay,” Cassian says, “Comm the others. Let them know to get to the ship as soon as they can, and have the engine running for us. Looks like we’ll need to leave in a hurry.” The droid sighs, but nods, moving to the far corner of the room.

“You don’t have to do this, Andor,” Kalla says as he gets to his feet. “I’ve made my bed. Only fair I have to lie in it.”

Jyn stands up next to him, her fingers still twined with his. He glances at her, and she nods, a fierce light in her eyes. Cassian looks back at Kalla. “I don’t have very many friends,” he says, slowly. “And the Empire’s taken enough of them already.”

“We’ll get you out of here,” Jyn says. “And your family, too.”

The naked relief in Kalla’s face is almost too much. Cassian’s been with the Rebellion a long time, sure, but he’s always had to play the bad guy. He’s not used to being the hero.

It’s kind of nice, he thinks wryly. Assuming they can make it out alive, that is.

Kay turns back to them. “They’re on their way.”

“Good,” Cassian says, and moves to divest the Imperial officer of his uniform. “Here’s what we’re gonna do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /holding out for a hero plays in the distance
> 
> A few of you called the bartender, which, fair. You may have also seen this coming, but lbr, I'm gonna take every chance for Rogue One to be the heroes they didn't get a chance to be in canon


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We have been… avoidably delayed,” Kaytoo says, his deadpan voice somehow still exasperated, “And are preparing to do something very foolish. Please proceed to the ship with haste and be prepared to depart quickly. Possibly under fire.”
> 
> Baze’s eyebrows climb, and he makes a sound somewhere between a grunt and a laugh. “Sounds like a party.”

After Jyn and Cassian leave, the safe house descends once more into relative quiet. Bodhi tries to go back to sleep, but whatever combination of adrenaline crash and bacta side effects allowed him to do so before, it’s eluding him now. His mind buzzes, a constant stream of disaster scenarios turning never-ending circles. Every unfamiliar noise outside becomes the sound of Stormtroopers surrounding them. Every sullen throb in his leg is the onset of a horrible infection (and yes, he’s aware that the cauterizing effect of blaster fire makes that highly unlikely, but that doesn’t stop him from worrying about it). He’s never been shot before, and he’s definitely not enjoying the experience.

If something were to happen to Jyn and Cassian, he thinks, pressing his face into his thin pillow, they would just… disappear. They just wouldn’t come back. And they (being the ones who were left behind) might never know why. Bodhi’s only known them a short time, but he already can’t imagine what the universe would look like without them.

He doesn’t know how long he tries before he finally gives up, pushing himself upright on the cot. His hair falls into his eyes, sweat-damp strands escaped from the messy tail he usually keeps them in. He rakes it back, scrubs a hand across the scruff on his cheeks blearily.

“How’s the leg?” Baze asks.

Bodhi starts – he hadn’t realized the Guardians were still in the room, but a glance over shows both Chirrut and Baze seated at the room’s small table.

“It’s fine?” he says uncertainly, and gets a full set of raised eyebrows in return. “Okay, it hurts, but it’s better than it was.”

Baze nods and pushes himself up. “Might be time for a fresh patch.” He grabs the half-empty pack and comes to sit at the end of the cot.

Some stubborn part of Bodhi still sets his heart pounding when the burly Guardian comes close, some vestigial fear left over from their first encounter. Bodhi fights it down; Baze has been nothing but kind to him since Scarif. No, before that—since Eadu. He doesn’t deserve Bodhi’s persistent anxiety.

Sure enough, the Guardian’s fingers are incredibly gentle as he peels what remains of Bodhi’s pant leg away from the wound. Bodhi braces his hands against the cot, but despite the sullen burn that crawls up his leg in response to even that gentle touch, he can’t manage to look away. He watches in morbid fascination as Baze tends to the wound. It’s ugly, a deep score in the side of Bodhi’s scrawny calf, a chunk of the muscle gouged out by the heat of the shot. If it had been a more square hit, Bodhi wonders a little dizzily, would he just have a hole straight through?

He tears his eyes away before the vague nausea in his gut turns into something worse. He looks at Chirrut instead. “Have we heard from the others?”

“Not yet,” Chirrut says, drumming his fingers idly beside the commlink he’s set on the table. “But they’re alright. Don’t worry.”

“You can feel them?” Bodhi asks, more curious than dubious. Sure, the Empire did its best to teach him that the Force was never anything more than a myth, but he grew up on Jedha, after all. He remembers, in the vague, distant way of early childhood, when the temple there was more than ruins. His mother told him stories of the Jedi when she tucked him in at night. And even if she hadn’t, between Chirrut and Luke, it would take someone far more jaded than Bodhi not to believe.

Chirrut tilts his head. “Jyn Erso burns brightly,” he says. “I would see if her fire were snuffed out.”

“What about Cassian?” Bodhi asks.

Chirrut smiles faintly. “He burns brighter than he used to.”

“That’s… reassuring?” Bodhi says uncertainly. As reassuring as cryptic metaphors can be, anyway. It’s not enough to completely stop the anxiety spiral inside him, but it slows it down a little.

And then the comm crackles, and Kaytoo’s voice comes through. “Antares to base.”

Chirrut picks the commlink up. “We’re listening.” He stands and moves to the cot, perching on the edge, where Bodhi and Baze can hear it more clearly.

“We have been… avoidably delayed,” Kaytoo says, his deadpan voice somehow still exasperated, “And are preparing to do something very foolish. Please proceed to the ship with haste and be prepared to depart quickly. Possibly under fire.”

Baze’s eyebrows climb, and he makes a sound somewhere between a grunt and a laugh. “Sounds like a party.”

“Do you need backup?” Bodhi asks, before he thinks better of it. He’s not at all sure his leg can support his weight, but the idea of his friends going into danger alone…

“No,” Kaytoo says, and Bodhi is a little ashamed by how relieved he is. “You are of the most strategic value securing our escape route.”

Bodhi nods, forgetting for a moment that the droid can’t see him. Flying is something he can do. Assuming they can get to the ship in one piece, anyway.

“We’ll take care of it,” Baze says.

Bodhi’s not sure where the impulse comes from, but he blurts, “May the Force be with you.” Chirrut starts next to him, then smiles slightly.

For a moment, the comm is silent, and Bodhi thinks the droid has signed off. But then the familiar, clicking sigh comes through. “And also with you.” And _then_ the comm goes dead.

Bodhi blinks. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he said it, but that certainly wasn’t it.

“It’s not quite dark yet,” Baze says, leaning over to peer at the chrono on the wall. “We may run into trouble.”

“We always run into trouble,” Chirrut says cheerfully. “But I have faith.”

“In the Force?” Baze asks, like he knows the answer already.

“Well, yes,” Chirrut says, standing. “But I meant in you, my dear partner.”

Baze sighs, but Bodhi catches a hint of a smile on the Guardian’s face as he stands. It’s still lingering when he glances back at Bodhi. “Can you walk?”

Bodhi shrugs. Only one way to find out. He swings his legs carefully to the side. The bearable burn in his calf flares into white-hot agony as soon as he tries to put weight on it. “No,” he pants, when he can breathe again. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Good thing Major Andor prepares for anything,” Baze says, and unearths a set of crutches from Force knows where.

With the help of the crutches, Bodhi can at least hobble. It still hurts, but at least he’s moving. He does a couple of laps around the room, getting the hang of the rhythm.

Baze and Chirrut wait patiently until he crutches to a stop next to them. “Ready?” Chirrut asks.

Bodhi swallows, and nods.

“I’ve got your back, pilot,” Baze says, giving Bodhi’s shoulder a reassuring pat that nearly knocks him over. And out they go.

\--

The Imperial facility where Kalla’s family is being held turns out to be an entirely unremarkable building on an entirely unremarkable street a few levels down and half a sector over from Kalla’s bar. It’s a good thing the Empire had been cocky enough to let the cantina owner visit once, Jyn thinks, or she’s not sure they would have ever found it. She notices the slowly-growing concentration of Stormtroopers patrolling the area as they draw nearer, but only because she’s looking for it.

Cassian leads the way, dressed in the uniform and bearing of a cocksure Imperial sergeant. Kalla follows just behind him, anonymous in a set of white plastoid armor. Jyn’s only disguise is Kaytoo’s hand heavy on her good shoulder; between her short stature and her injury, there was no way she was going to be able to squeeze into a suit of armor herself. So she’s the Rebel prisoner.

At least it’s a familiar role, she thinks wryly.

None of the troopers they pass on the street try to stop them. Cassian marches their little group right past them all and into the facility.

Inside, an Imperial flunky seated behind a desk looks up. “Can I help you?”

“I require an interrogation room,” Cassian says.

The Imperial’s eyes flicker to Jyn. She scowls, makes a show of fighting Kaytoo’s grip, until the droid’s unforgiving metal fingers tighten enough that her good arm starts to go a little numb. Then she subsides, wincing a little. Selling the cover is more important than a few bruises, but she’s definitely going to have marks from this.

The man looks back at Cassian, eyes the rank markers on his tunic. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t recognize you; have you worked in this sector before?”

“Sergeant Levi Antares,” Cassian says, his voice icy. “Normally, I wouldn’t be caught dead this far down. But seeing as everyone in this sector is apparently utterly incompetent, I’ve been sent down to clean up your mess.” His eyebrow quirks, just slightly. “Or didn’t you notice, I’ve caught one of your elusive Rebel insurgents. I would like to interrogate her before her friends slip through your net – _again_ – and get off planet. _If you wouldn’t mind_.” He shrugs. “Unless you’d like to call my superior, Major Vrei, in Adur quarter. I’m sure he’d _love_ to be disturbed because you feel the need to question your betters.”

The flunky goes a little pale. “No, that won’t be – uh, sorry, sir.” He taps at his console. “Looks like interrogation room three is open. Do you need any assistance?”

Cassian gives him a look of such epic disdain that Jyn has to cough to cover a snort of laughter. “I think I can handle it,” he says, and brushes past the desk. Jyn lets Kaytoo drag her a little, and has to bite back a yelp when the motion tweaks her injury.

Jyn keeps her eyes down, mostly, as they move back into the base. She’s still got her part to play. She gets the impression of winding, unmarked hallways, lined with blank doors. A chill crawls slowly up her spine.

They stop at a seemingly unremarkable door. “If they haven’t moved them,” Kalla says, “I think this is it.” Cassian keys it open.

Kalla’s sister, as it turns out, looks very little like her. The older of the two girls huddled next to her, however, is the spitting image of the bartender. Kalla’s sister gathers her children close. “I already told you—“

“It’s me,” Kalla says, pushing the helmet off over her head.

Whatever the rest of their reunion looks like, Jyn misses it entirely. A man in a crisp gray uniform picks that moment to step around the corner, and stop. “What are you--?”

Jyn pulls free of Kaytoo’s grip and bulls, good shoulder first, into the man’s gut, driving the wind out of him before he can finish the sentence. The impact is still enough to send a flash of pain through her strong enough to send her to her knees.

When her vision clears a moment later, it’s to the sight of the man’s feet a few inches off the ground. Kaytoo has his fingers wrapped around his neck. Jyn watches the man choke, scrabbling at the droid’s unforgiving grip. Then, slowly, he goes still.

“Is he--?” Jyn pants.

Kaytoo glances at her. “No,” he says finally. “Only unconscious.” He pauses. “I think. Organic necks are awfully squishy.” He keys open a nearby room – a storage closet, it looks like – and dumps the man’s limp body inside.

“Are you alright?” Cassian asks as she and Kaytoo return to the doorway. He has his own blaster drawn, watching the other direction warily, but the concern in his voice sends a pang of warmth through Jyn’s chest.

“I’m fine,” she assures him. “That was quite the performance back there.”

A smirk tugs at his mouth. “I’ve spent enough time undercover that I’m fluent in Asshole.”

Jyn laughs.

“We should go,” Kaytoo says. “We have evaded detection thus far, but—“

“Agreed,” Cassian says. “Kalla?”

She looks up, and nods. With a little shuffling in the narrow hallway, they form a new cluster, Cassian and Jyn in front (with Jyn now once again in possession of her blaster) and Kaytoo in the rear, the family relatively sheltered between them.

“We can’t go out the front like this,” Jyn murmurs.

“Guess we’ll have to find the back door,” Cassian replies. She glances at him, and he flashes her a small, but genuine grin. “There’s always a back door. Right?”

“I sure hope so,” she says, but she smiles back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter and an epilogue to go!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bodhi bites back a flood of anxious questions, picking out the most important one to ask: “Are you okay?”
> 
> A pause. “We’re losing them, I think,” Cassian says, which isn’t an answer. “We’ll be there as soon as we do.”

Bodhi thought traipsing halfway across Jedha with a bag over his head was bad. And it was, to be fair. It just turns out that crutching through the stifling crowds of Coruscant gives that hellish walk a run for its money.

At least, he thinks, when he can think straight, this time he’s with friends.

Climbing up poses a problem. Turbolifts can get them most of the way to the surface, but they don’t reach this far down. Bodhi struggles up the first flight, but he’s so wiped out by the effort it takes that he nearly keels over when he reaches the landing.

Baze and Chirrut exchange a look. “We don’t have time for this,” Baze says, not unkindly. “New plan: I’ll carry you.”

Bodhi blinks. “What?”

Chirrut looks amused. “He’s done it before.”

The memories of their earlier escape are a little fuzzy with adrenaline and pain, but Bodhi does remember the flight to the safehouse thrown over Baze’s shoulder. Guilt roils in his stomach. He’s getting uncomfortably used to being a burden.

Baze puts a comforting hand on his shoulder, his eyes serious. “You’re the one who’s gonna fly us out of here,” he says. “That’s your job. Our job is to get you there. Okay?”

When he puts it that way… And besides, it’s not like he has much of a choice. Bodhi swallows and nods. “Okay.”

Chirrut takes his crutches. Baze moves around in front of Bodhi, and with a bit of awkward shuffling, they maneuver Bodhi onto his back.

Once he’s in place, Baze straightens with a grunt. “You weigh _nothing_ , pilot,” he says. “My cannon was heavier than you.”

Bodhi pauses. “Uh. Sorry?”

Baze shakes his head, and they start up the stairs. Bodhi hangs on as best he can, fighting down embarrassment and a persistent, nagging guilt. But when Baze doesn’t seem bothered by the extra weight, Bodhi has to admit to himself that it’s a good idea. If he’d insisted on doing it himself, it’d take forever for them to make it to the ship. And Jyn and Cassian are counting on them.

They’re lucky, at first. Between Chirrut’s sensitive hearing and Baze’s tall stature, they avoid the occasional patrols of Stormtroopers as they make their way up.

But when they reach the spaceport where the ship waits, their luck runs out.

“That’s a lot of guards,” Bodhi mutters to himself, peering through the crowd at the white-armored figures clustered around the entrance.

Baze deposits him carefully on a bench, far enough from the gate that the crowd offers them a buffer from the attention of the guards. The Guardian is a little out of breath, but seems none the worse for wear for having hauled Bodhi across half the city. “We could take them,” he says.

Bodhi’s not so sure of that. And it’s a moot point, anyway;  even if they could fight their way past the guards, the commotion would stop them in its own way. “If we raise an alarm, they’ll shut down the port,” he points out. “The only way we’re getting out of here is stealth.”

Baze grumbles, but he doesn’t argue. He knows Bodhi’s right.

The commlink in Bodhi’s pocket buzzes, and he fumbles it out. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“We’re--“ a noise cuts off Cassian’s voice before he can finish. Dread creeps into Bodhi’s gut as he recognizes it: blaster fire. “We’re on our way,” Cassian says a moment later. “Tell me you have the ship.”

“Uh,” Bodhi says. “Not yet. They’ve notched up security at the port; we can’t get in.”

“Probably our fault,” Cassian says. “We—“ another blast of noise— “We may have tripped an alarm or two.”

Bodhi bites back a flood of anxious questions, picking out the most important one to ask: “Are you okay?”

A pause. “We’re losing them, I think,” Cassian says, which isn’t an answer. “We’ll be there as soon as we do.”

“Okay,” Bodhi says reluctantly. “We’ll… try to figure something out.”

“Good luck,” Cassian says, and the comm clicks off.

Bodhi rakes a hand through his hair. He glances at Chirrut, standing at the end of the bench. “Any ideas?”

The Guardian shifts. “No,” he says, “But I sense we may have help soon.”

“What does that mean?” Bodhi asks. Chirrut smiles, and says nothing.

It’s another tense, impatient five minutes before the promised help arrives, in the form of a familiar face materializing from the evening crowd. “You’re looking a little the worse for wear, there, Deke,” Avan Marr says.

Bodhi rubs at the back of his neck. “It’s uh… it’s been a long day.”

Avan gives the two Guardians an interested look. “Who’re your friends?”

“I’m Chirrut,” Chirrut says. Bodhi starts, surprised that the Guardian didn’t use whatever pseudonym was on the papers Cassian had arranged. “And that’s Baze.” Baze grunts in acknowledgement.

“Avan Marr,” she says, glancing at Bodhi. “Those don’t sound like pseudonyms.”

Chirrut smiles, and shrugs. “I sense you prefer the straightforward approach.”

Avan grins. “You sense, huh?”

“It’s kind of a long story,” Bodhi says.

“I bet,” the smuggler says. “Seeing as he’s not wrong.” She turns to glance back at the spaceport entrance. “I _sense_ those bucketheads are between you and your ship.”

Bodhi hesitates. For all that she seems to like him, he barely knows her. She could still decide to sell them to the Empire, however unlikely he thinks that is.

But someone has to make a decision. They need to get to the ship. And Chirrut – who is the most qualified of them by far to judge character – seems to trust her, at least a little bit. “Yeah,” he says, finally. “I don’t suppose you know any way to get around that?”

Avan grins. “I’d be a shit smuggler if I didn’t know a few back doors, wouldn’t I?” She glances at him. “Might be tricky, with that leg, but what’s life without a few challenges.”

Bodhi snorts. Avan moves to get up. “Wait,” he says. “The rest of us, they’re—“

“Right,” she says. “Antares and his girlfriend, right?” Bodhi nods, fighting back a nervous laugh at the imagined look on Jyn’s face if she’d heard that. “Rieve’s nearby,” Avan continues, “I’ll comm her, let her know to be looking for them. She can bring them in after us.”

Bodhi bites his lip. Part of him wants to wait, but… he nods and levers himself up.

They follow Avan through the crowd. Bodhi struggles a bit to keep up, his arms starting to ache in earnest as soon as he puts the crutches back under them, but he pushes through. Avan leads them to a storefront halfway down the block, where she exchanges a cryptic nod with the shopkeeper. She takes them down a narrow set of stairs behind the counter, through a storeroom, and out through a recessed door that Bodhi would never have seen on his own.

Bodhi steps through, and stops. “Woah.” They’re just under the surface level, on a narrow catwalk suspended hundreds of feet above the next level down. Bodhi’s stomach twists. “That’s a long way down.”

“Doesn’t look so far to me,” Chirrut says cheerfully. Avan glances at him with a snort that’s half surprise and half amusement. Bodhi lets the familiar joke soothe him, settle his nerves a little.

He can’t avoid looking down, not when the open spaces in the grating are large enough to catch the end of his crutches if he’s not careful. So he focuses carefully on the catwalk, letting the massive drop underneath it fuzz out of focus. Avan leads the way, with Chirrut behind her, and Baze bringing up the rear.

“Which pad are you on?” she asks over her shoulder.

Bodhi racks his brain. “Thirty six.”

He has no idea how she’s doing it, but somehow that’s enough for Avan to guide them across the winding catwalk system. As they move slowly but steadily along, Bodhi’s curiosity slowly outgrows his fear. “Are these all over the city?”

“Not everywhere,” Avan answers. “We’ve expanded them a lot, but we stick to important places. Like spaceports.”

“Expanded them?” he repeats. “What were they originally?”

Avan shrugs. “For maintenance, probably. Or maybe left over from when they were building this place. I don’t know, really.”

Chirrut stops so suddenly Bodhi bumps into his back, his hand snapping out to grab Avan’s sleeve. “Ssh.”

They freeze. Bodhi listens, as much as he can past his heart pounding in his ears. It’s faint, and he would never have heard it if he hadn’t been trying, but eventually he makes out the sound of Stormtrooper boots overhead. He doesn’t know how many – he wonders briefly if Chirrut can count them by that sound alone – but he’d guess it’s a lot. They wait in tense silence for what feels to Bodhi like a small eternity. Then, finally, the sound fades away. Chirrut relaxes.

“We definitely need to get you off planet,” Avan says.

“No argument here,” Bodhi agrees.

The rest of the trek is made in relative silence, all four of them listening carefully. Bodhi can’t possibly hold his breath that long, but it kind of feels like he does.

Finally, Avan stops. Bodhi looks up, and groans. “Of course it’s a ladder.”

“Need a lift?” Baze asks.

“I can do it,” he says, trying to sound more certain than he feels. He’s getting very tired of being dead weight, the Guardians’ reassurances aside.

Avan goes ahead of him to check that the coast is clear. Bodhi claws his way up after her, one agonizing hop of his good leg at a time, his injured one dangling uselessly beside it. It _sucks_ , and he’s completely out of breath when he finally levers himself up onto the surface, but he makes it. Avan gives him a moment to recover (by which time Chirrut has scaled the ladder as well, and Baze is on his way up). “Ta-da,” she says, with a flourish.

Sure enough, the familiar shape of _Rogue One_ looms in front of them, just a pad or two away. Bodhi blows out a sigh of relief. He was beginning to worry he’d never see the ship again. Chirrut passes Bodhi’s crutches back to him, and the four of them make for the ship.

As they get closer, Bodhi notices something off. His heart sinks. The cargo door yawns open, the interior dark.

Avan pauses as she sees it, too, glancing back at Bodhi. “I’m guessing you didn’t leave it that way.”

He shakes his head. Kaytoo wouldn’t have, either.

Baze reaches for his blaster, but Avan shakes her head sharply. “Too loud. You’ll bring the rest down on us.”

“Okay,” the Guardian says, and cracks his knuckles. “Then we get to do this the fun way.”

Chirrut grins, giving his staff an experimental spin. “I believe it’s your turn to play bait, my dear.”

Baze strolls towards the open hatch like he hasn’t a care in the world; Chirrut circles wide, on a path that will bring him in from the aft end of the ship. Baze plants himself in front of the door, still ten feet or so away. “Oi,” he calls, “That’s my ship.”

Easily a dozen Stormtroopers spill out of the hatch, fanning out to surround Baze. He lets them complete the circle, completely unconcerned, then folds his arms. “See, that’s not a smart move.”

“What are you talking about?” one of the troopers asks.

“Well,” Baze says, “When you miss me, you’ll hit each other. It’s bad tactics.” None of the troopers seem to have noticed Chirrut as he slips up between them and the open hatch. The monk hefts his staff in his hand, drawing it back over one shoulder like a bat.

Fingers tighten on blasters all around the circle. “We won’t miss,” the same trooper says.

Baze grins. “Wanna bet?”

Chirrut swings; the staff slams into the back of the nearest Stormtrooper’s head with a deafening _crack_. The troopers shout and scatter, half of them turning to face the new threat.

Baze takes the opening to charge forward, shoulder down, and slam into one of the troopers so hard he goes _flying_. He straightens, brings his elbow around with his entire body’s momentum behind it, and catches a second trooper right in the joint between his helmet and his backplate. The trooper folds instantly.

Chirrut is normally a whirlwind in a fight, his iconic red sash flowing behind him. Without it, he’s a wraith, flitting between the troopers too fast for them to catch and dealing out devastating blows with feet and staff alike.

It’s beautiful, and horrible. It’s necessary, but Bodhi wishes it weren’t.

Not a single shot is fired.

Baze slams the final trooper into the side of _Rogue One_ with enough force that the man’s breastplate is dented when he falls. The ship groans a protest, shifting on its landers. Baze kicks the trooper’s limp form over, and gives a satisfied snort. “That was _satisfying_.”

“Looks like we got here just in time,” Jyn says. Bodhi starts; he’d been so entranced by the Guardians’ peculiarly graceful violence, he hadn’t even heard the rest of the group arrive. He scans them quickly. He has no idea who the four apparent civilians are (though one of the women looks vaguely familiar), but they all seem to be in one piece.

Cassian raises his eyebrows at the landing pad, now strewn liberally with limp Stormtrooper bodies. “Nice.”

“Best go before another patrol comes along,” Rieve says. She nods at Bodhi when he glances at her. “We’ll follow you soon enough. Got a few more holdouts to try and convince.”

“Good idea,” Cassian says, and he and Jyn start shepherding the civilians towards the ship.

“Wait,” Bodhi blurts as the smugglers turn to go. He struggles to find words for a moment, then settles for a heartfelt but totally inadequate “Thank you.”

Rieve smiles. “Least we could do.”

“Give the Princess our regards,” Avan adds.

Bodhi nods. There’s not much more to say to that, so he turns and heads for the ship.

It takes some tricky maneuvering with his crutches to get to the cockpit – the U-wing is cramped with this many people. He eventually makes it, and hauls himself into the pilot’s chair with a sigh of relief.

Cassian’s in the copilot’s chair, working through the pre-flight sequences. It takes Bodhi a second to realize he’s doing it almost entirely left-handed; his right hand rests in his lap, the knuckles split and a little swollen.

“Are you hurt?” Bodhi asks, even as he automatically starts punching in the ignition sequence.

Cassian glances at him, flashing a wry smile. “Nothing major, don’t worry. A couple of busted knuckles. An hour in a bacta soak and it’ll be fine.”

“What happened?”

The smile turns into a smirk. “I punched a Stormtrooper in the face. Well. Helmet.”

Bodhi blinks. “Oh.” He considers. “Ow.”

Cassian laughs at that. “Yes. But it was worth it.”

The pilot glances back at the four civilians, and his friends settling down onto the bench seats for the trip home. “Yeah,” he says. “I bet it was.”


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So what happens now?”
> 
> Cassian turns at the sound of Kalla’s voice. He studies her for a moment silently – she’s shed the armor long since, leaving her in just the plain black undersuit. 
> 
> “What do you want to happen?” he asks, finally.

When they arrive at Yavin IV, it’s to a base in the throes of chaos. Cassian’s only surprised it took this long.

Jyn frowns as she peers out the front viewport, leaning between Cassian and Bodhi. “What’s going on?”

“Looks like it’s moving day,” Cassian says. At Bodhi’s perplexed look, he elaborates, “Our location’s been compromised. Sooner or later, the Empire’s going to get its act together and come back here to finish the job. So we move.”

“Where to?” Bodhi wonders.

Cassian shrugs. “They’ll probably tell us just before we make the jump.”

Draven’s waiting for them as they settle to the landing pad, along with a small medical team, no doubt dispatched when Cassian mentioned on their approach that they had injured aboard. Cassian’s privately glad for it; the medics descend on Jyn and Bodhi as soon as he opens the hatch, and that means Jyn won’t have a chance (this time) to follow through on her threat to punch Draven. Not that Cassian blames her for the anger she still holds towards the general, but she’s in the official Alliance hierarchy now. It complicates things.

The general’s eyebrows spike upwards at the sight of the sling around Jyn’s neck and Bodhi’s crutches, and climb even higher as Kalla and her family peer curiously out of the ship. He glances at Cassian as the major approaches. “I take it things didn’t go according to plan.”

Cassian considers, and shrugs. “Do they ever?”

The corner of Draven’s mouth quirks, just slightly. “Anything I should be concerned about?”

 _A great deal_ , Cassian thinks. He doubts Draven will approve of his decision not to cut and run. Kalla and her family provide little strategic value, and strategic values are Draven’s values. “It’s a long story,” he says, finally. “I’ll have a full report ready tonight.”

“Should be an interesting read,” Draven says. “I look forward to it.” Then, after a breath, “Have your team ready to leave by daybreak. We’ve received word the Empire is preparing to strike, so there’s no time to waste.”

Cassian nods.

He seems to notice Cassian’s hand then, swollen and achy, held carefully at his side. Cassian knows he’s an open book to Draven, but he’s not too shabby at reading the general, either. Draven’s expression softens, just a little. “Make sure you have that seen to.”

“Of course,” Cassian says, even though he knows he’ll feel guilty for drawing on their limited bacta supplies.

Draven gives him a look. “Do I need to make that an order, Major?”

“No, sir,” Cassian says.

The general shakes his head and paces away.

Cassian turns back to his team. One medic has Bodhi’s arm around his shoulder, helping the pilot hobble towards the medbay. Jyn’s fending off the other’s attempts to examine her shoulder. Cassian smiles despite himself.

“It’s fine,” Jyn insists as Cassian walks up. “I don’t need you poking at it.”

“Sergeant Erso,” the medic says, his patience obviously waning, “Field first aid is no substitute for proper medical care.”

Jyn gives Cassian an exasperated look. He takes pity on the medic. “Give us a minute.”

The medic throws up his hands in defeat and follows Bodhi and his companion. Cassian raises an eyebrow at Jyn. “Do you have to give him such a hard time? He’s just trying to help.”

“I give everyone a hard time,” Jyn points out. “Besides, I hate medbays. Nothing good ever happens in them.”

A smirk tugs at the edge of Cassian’s mouth. “I would agree with you,” he says, “But I can think of at least one _recent_ exception.”

Jyn’s cheeks go slightly pink. “That’s hardly a fair example.”

“Whoever said I play fair?” Cassian teases, and gets an eyeroll and a grin in return.

“Fine,” she says, in mock exasperation, “But you have to come, too.” She looks pointedly at his hand.

“I will, in a minute,” he says.

She narrows her eyes. “You’d better. I know where you sleep.” And she heads off. Cassian watches her go, torn between amusement and vague sympathy for the medics.

“So what happens now?”

Cassian turns at the sound of Kalla’s voice. He studies her for a moment silently – she’s shed the armor long since, leaving her in just the plain black undersuit.

“What do you want to happen?” he asks, finally.

She folds her arms, turning to regard the frenetic activity of the base as the Rebellion prepares to flee. “I want to be here,” she decides. “Maybe I should have come a long time ago.”

Cassian nods, a small smile quirking his mouth. “We’ll be glad to have you.” He pauses. “And your sister?”

Kalla sighs. “I don’t know. We’re… it’s complicated. There are reasons we hadn’t talked in years. And she’s not sure the Rebellion is a good place for the kids.”

“That’s fair,” he acknowledges.

“Will she be allowed to leave?” Kalla asks bluntly. “If that’s what she decides to do?”

Draven might have something to say about that, Cassian thinks wryly. Something about security risks, and unnecessary chances. But he knows what the right answer is. “I’m not sure,” he says, “But if she’s not… well. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve gone rogue.”

Kalla grins at that. “I heard your callsign on the way in. Rogue One, huh? Didn’t realize it was quite so literal.”

“Bodhi came up with it,” he says, “After we stole a ship against direct orders from the Council.”

Kalla’s eyebrows vanish into her hair. “Sounds like quite a story.”

Cassian grins. “Buy me a drink later, and I’ll tell you the whole thing.”

She smiles. “I just might take you up on that.” The expression turns amused. “But right now, you might want to follow your—“ Cassian shoots her a look, and she quickly amends—“ _Jyn_ and save those medics from getting their heads bitten off.”

Cassian’s pretty sure Jyn’s bark is worse than her bite, at least when it comes to allies, but he’d be lying if he told himself he wasn’t a little concerned that all the action might have damaged her shoulder. And his hand is aching in earnest now. So he nods. Kalla claps him on the shoulder and returns to her sister.

Before he goes, Cassian pauses at the scene in the ship. Chirrut is regaling the younger girl with a highly-embellished (but at the same time sanitized) version of their alleyway escape on Coruscant. The older girl is—Cassian does a double-take— _braiding Baze’s hair_. The Guardian looks completely unperturbed, watching his partner gesticulate wildly with a patiently amused expression.

It’s such a small moment, hidden amidst a great deal of chaos and uncertainty, but it brings a smile to his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> c'est complet!
> 
> Thank you to everyone who read and left kudos or commented along the way! Next up: a couple of snippets from Hoth, then I have another longer fic in the works. And then, maybe we'll be in ESB territory?? finally?? who knows, honestly
> 
> I'm interested in maybe starting to work with a beta - I've never done it before, but I'd love someone to bounce chapters off before I post them or ideas when I get stuck. If anyone would be interested in trying that out, please drop me a line here or on my tumblr at ssimpleandclean and let's chat about it!


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